Before our invention augmented reality markers were commonly used to trigger an augmented reality experience to start or be initiated on a mobile device. In this regard, as long as the mobile device could “see” and recognize the marker the augmented reality experience continued to display and be viewable to a user. This would typically continue until the marker was no long visible to, or recognized by, the mobile device and without the marker, as a reference, the experience would stop and often be no longer viewable to the user.
To restart the augmented reality experience the user would have to reacquire, “see”, the marker again with the mobile device and then the augmented reality experience would be re-triggered and start over.
A shortcoming is that losing recognition of the marker caused the augmented reality experience to stop and regaining the marker recognition caused the augmented reality experience to start over, often forcing the user to redo from the beginning whatever they might have started in the way of interacting with the augmented reality experience.
Another shortcoming is that when a marker, including invisible markers, must be recognized in order to keep an augmented reality experience continuously executing, it can make it difficult for a user to interact with the mobile device. In this regard, the user must often hold the mobile device to insure the marker will be recognized, often requiring placement and steadiness of the mobile device at awkward handheld angles, in the user's hand, at steep vertical inclines, for extended periods of time, making it difficult to use the mobile device, without losing recognition of the marker. As such, it can be difficult to use the mobile device for both meaningful work and augmented reality at the same time.
Other experiences utilize the marker to trigger the augmented reality experience but then, at some point, redirect the user to a webpage or other non-augmented reality site or application. In this regard, in these types of experiences, when recognition of the marker is “lost” after redirection there is no way back to the augmented reality portion of the experience. As such, another shortcoming is that the user cannot return seamlessly to the augmented reality experience from a redirected experience.
For these reasons and shortcomings as well as for other reasons and shortcomings there is a long felt need to be able to acquire a marker, once, to initiate an augmented reality experience and then be able to toggle between an augmented reality image viewing mode and a rendered image viewing mode so that the user can maintain an uninterrupted viewing when the marker is “lost” or otherwise unrecognizable. This ability can improve the usability of augmented reality experiences by allowing the user to set down a mobile device and continue the experience. This ability can also aid users of wearable augmented reality devices by allowing them to continue to view the experience without requiring that they maintain an optimal view of the augmented reality marker.